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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2010589" data-attributes="member: 172">Todd Gamble's Cartographica: Journal of MapsTodd Gamble's Cartographica: Journal of Maps (hereafter, Cartographica) is a full color collection of maps by WotC alumni cartographer Todd Gamble. The book is published by Green Ronin, and is not d20 branded or published under the OGL. That said, this review will be primarily from the standpoint of its utility for d20 System fantasy gaming.Cartographica is a 32 page perfect bound softcover book priced at $16.95. The interior is all glossy full color pages.The cover of the book has an illustration that resembles a stamped and bordered piece of parchment with a map scale and an illustration of a waterfront tower.With the exception of the title page and an ad page, the interior is entirely maps. Each map has a stylish parchment-looking banner and a border that makes the map itself appear to be on parchment (well, if you fed parchment into your printer to print CG-looking maps...)The maps are colorful and stylish. Some of the maps use 5 or 10 foot scale grids, though some use no grid or an odd-scale grid. Some grids are not actual grids, but have different shades and/or colored tiles on the illustrated floor that act as a grid. However, all of the maps have scale bars.The maps themselves are colorful, computer-generated maps. Maps are divided into sections, some sections with thematically or physically linked maps. Sections include:- Behind castle walls: Floorplans of castles and other large buildings like cathedrals.- Wizard's Tower and Power House: Four levels of a wizards tower built on a dam with a magical power generator.- Subterranean Passages: A collection of man-made an natural catacombs connected to the wizard's tower.- Sacred Tombs: Manmade tombs, some of them apparently blow ups of sections on the subterranean passages.- Dungeon Levels: A few levels of a man-made dungeon.- Overland Maps: Islands, parts of continents, and some smaller maps.- Exotic Islands: A few villages and lairs on the before depicted islands.- Small Hamlet: Some maps of buildings, trees, and other features in a small hamlet.- Mining Passages- Underground SewersThe maps seem primarily useful to me if you are going to be showing them to players, something that is most likely with the overland maps. Some of the maps seem to have good utility as quick maps. However, these maps seem much less inspired/inspirational than many of the maps by Gamble that appear in Wizards of the Coast's Map-a-Week archive. In fact, only the wizard's tower seems to be of the same "idea content" caliber as the WotC archive.The main drawback of the maps themselves are that some have shading that is so dark that they make some or most map features difficult or impossible to see. This is particularly true of some castle maps and most of the outdoor exotic island maps.Overall Grade: C+-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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